Bio-electric

Parallel Scheme for modeling the electrical response of full body bio-models to electric stimulus.

A. Mishra

This work is meant to provide a robust and accurate scheme to study the effect of direct contact electric stimulus on full body tissue models. The most significant applications are in the areas of directed energy devices, and also in clinical settings, where it is required to study the effect of such stimuli on artificial devices such as pacemakers etc. The scheme developed here is extremely fast and allows the visualization of results while the computation is being done. The system is capable of allowing multiple electrode placements with varying shapes. Also allows current injection for stimulus.

	Left : The volumetric profile of an actual rat model which was used. Different tissue are visible in different colors. Right: The electric potential distribution viewed at a depth of 12 mm from the bottom surface. The stimulus was a 500μs AC pulse with amplitude of 400V.
	Left : The volumetric profile of a monkey's head visualized using a different rendering method. The electrodes was placed at the top and bottom surfaces. Right: The electric potential distribution viewed at a depth of 40 mm from the bottom surface. The stimulus was a 500μs AC pulse with amplitude of 400V. The side profile of the head is clearly visible. The snap shot was taken when the Applied pulse was at -145 V.

Nerve activation and conduction block methods:

A. Mishra

An extension of the work above - this is to study the propagation of action potential (AP) in nerve fibers. We also intend to look at methods of achieving conduction block in the nerve segments, by mono-phasic/AC/DC interruption signal. Since depending upon the electric stimulus level (as shown above) - there is a possibility of membrane rupture - this also leads to a possibility of an AP block occurring in whole bodies as a natural fall out of exposure to H V electrical stimuli (in nano-micro) second time scale. We work with single and branch unmyelinated nerve models.